How could Rick Perry's ultrarightism on Social Security possibly hurt him in the GOP's ultraright primaries? The Romney organization, via the Post's Marc Thiessen, provides the answer:
Romney’s campaign will argue that Perry is against the very idea of Social Security and Medicare, and that he will use Perry’s book to scare seniors in early-primary states with large retiree populations, such as Florida and South Carolina.
It seems to me that Perry has overplayed his (right) hand. Of course Mitt Romney could be wrong, but so far, he's not panicking. I would think the polling on this would be devastating to Perry. Even W. got burned on it.
Go ahead and mock him M but the GOP has quietly un-passed the Ryan plan to end Medicare.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/08/republicans-to-democrats-stop-lies-and-scare-tactics/1
:-)
Posted by: Robert Lipscomb | August 29, 2011 at 02:03 PM
I think you need to wait for polling to show whether people support or oppose Rick Perry's positions on SS and Medicare before you announce that he's overplayed his hand. So far Perry's surging in the polls.
Posted by: emile | August 29, 2011 at 02:48 PM
Does Romney have a choice in this strategy? If he goes after Perry then he will be attacking an opponent who is not only as dumb as a bag of rocks but actually has a bag of rocks. And Romney lives in a sparkling glass house. I don't see how Romney can get down and dirty with anyone.
Posted by: Peter G | August 29, 2011 at 03:15 PM
The thing is, this is a Republican primary and we saw with Christine O'Donnell and the fight that Murkowski had this might not work. You also have to couple this with the fact that his Mormonism makes him unacceptable in the south.
Pawlenty should have stuck it out. He would have been the natural alternative after Perry and Romney duked it out and Bachmann flamed out. He could have lived off the land for a couple of months and made this same argument; he panicked over the no money thing which is why he is done politically. Gingrich has more stones than that guy; I gotta respect him for staying in the race.
Posted by: Rhoda | August 30, 2011 at 05:06 AM
When Rick Perry and "SS" are mentioned in the same sentence the last thing I think of is Social Security. Yes Bush got burned on it in his second term but I don't remember him being so brash about getting rid of social security as Scary Perry is now. Unfortunately I think too many people are still more interested in balls than brains.
Posted by: AnneJ. | August 30, 2011 at 10:48 AM